Epic Games and EA announce plans to release playable demos for Bulletstorm beginning on January 25. Noticeably absent from the announcement is any mention of a PC demo for this game that Mark Rein described as "a full-blown, oh-my-god amazing PC game." We contacted Epic about this and confirmed that at this time there are no plans for a PC demo, but Mark was not around to explain why this is the case.

While the X360 and PS3 get actual game demos of BulletStorm, despite the handicap of being specifically locked-out of using mouse and keyboard, the Windows crowd does not get an actual 'BulletStorm' demo. Nevermind console guys have the option of renting their games first.

We get 'Duty Calls - The Calm Before the Storm', a hashed 'parody' of Call of Duty that ends in a trailer for BulletStorm. How is this not a stupid decision that cost money to accomplish nothing while disappointing PC players?

Nevermind 'BulletStorm' is a horrible title that sounds like a fictional game made for a movie to make a from-the-hip cynical statement about modern video games.

Tumbler wrote on Jan 15, 2011, 22:49:Lotta bitching over lack of demo... pretty sad state of afairs when something as simple as no demo gets this kind of response.

The problem is not that there is no demo. Is that there are console demos but no PC demo from a PCGA member that says "Our PC fanbase is of ultimate importance to us.". Hence, the bitching.

Rattlehead wrote on Jan 15, 2011, 23:58:lol, you guys here are really pathetic. From the tools who threaten to pirate the game, to the morons getting their piss in a boil over consoles...just wow. You kids here need to grow up and get a life.

Tumbler wrote on Jan 15, 2011, 22:49:Lotta bitching over lack of demo... pretty sad state of afairs when something as simple as no demo gets this kind of response. I'm playing dragon age on the 360 and wanted to try the pc, no demo that i can find, so i should scream and throw a fit and go pirate it?

I'd say skip the screaming and fit part.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell (I think...)

lol, you guys here are really pathetic. From the tools who threaten to pirate the game, to the morons getting their piss in a boil over consoles...just wow. You kids here need to grow up and get a life.

Lotta bitching over lack of demo... pretty sad state of afairs when something as simple as no demo gets this kind of response. I'm playing dragon age on the 360 and wanted to try the pc, no demo that i can find, so i should scream and throw a fit and go pirate it?

Oddly enough i went and checked prices, and added it to my goozex que. I can wait.

People who come in here threatening to pirate and bitching about supporting consoles over pc's need to grow up.

People like Jerykk are going to download this game on a torrent either way anyway.

For the 432nd time, I don't use torrents. Don't know how many times I have to repeat that before people stop claiming that fallacy. I use newsgroups which are much, much harder to track and thus don't really contribute to piracy statistics. They are also much faster and more reliable.

But you're right, I am going to demo the game regardless of whether or not an official demo is ever released. It would be an unnecessary risk to buy the game without any hands-on experience. Similarly, it would be pretty short-sighted to avoid the game completely simply because there was no demo. If Bulletstorm ends up being an enjoyable game, I'll buy it. The more enjoyable it is, the more I'm going to pay. Works out well for the devs that make games I enjoy.

New, unproven, IP from a conceded, console-centric developer, with no way to test it to see if it's tripe?

Not even worth pirating-as-a-demo in my opinion - there are too many good games in my backlog to bother with something that the developers are actively trying to hide the gameplay of on only one of the three platforms. Maybe worth a bargain bin grab in a year or so, but I just went from heavily intrigued with a high likelihood of purchase, to disinterested.

Rein chuckled at Indie devs at a meeting last year because he found their love for their fans to be naive. The guy is a total douchebag.

No one at Epic is a PC Gamer. They are all console casual kiddies. I hope they come here and read this, because I'd love to invite them over and tell it to their casual*** faces. They are babies, plain and simple.

Real men don't play with joysticks, only ***s and women do.

I love you!Exactly my thoughts.. fuck the consoles, fuck their audience and assrape the god damn devs that rode the PC gamer into the console world and never looked back at who got them there.

Rein chuckled at Indie devs at a meeting last year because he found their love for their fans to be naive. The guy is a total douchebag.

No one at Epic is a PC Gamer. They are all console casual kiddies. I hope they come here and read this, because I'd love to invite them over and tell it to their casual*** faces. They are babies, plain and simple.

There's no PC demo because they probably are worried about piracy. I know, it doesn't make a bit of sense but I after seeing securom installed on DEMOS, I'm beginning to think publishers are so paranoid they won't even let us touch 1/100th of the game's code without proper background checks, security codes, ID verifications and unhealthy doses of DRM.

StingingVelvet wrote on Jan 15, 2011, 07:22:I've had about two games in the last 5 years have a crashing problem and both of them were fixed with a patch or tweak, so I don't know about this "crashes are common" thing. Same with the hardware incompatabilies, for new games that has happened to me... never? Yeah, never.

The only games I ever have issues with on the PC also have notorious problems on consoles, on the level of hard crashing the system.

My resort has been to blacklist both the developer and publisher. Haven't run into any shit games since I started doing that.

entr0py wrote on Jan 15, 2011, 04:26:On a platform where hardware incompatibilities and unfixed crashes are common, and refunds are increasingly hard to get; yes, lacking a demo is a serious problem.

I've had about two games in the last 5 years have a crashing problem and both of them were fixed with a patch or tweak, so I don't know about this "crashes are common" thing. Same with the hardware incompatabilies, for new games that has happened to me... never? Yeah, never.

Maybe you just keep a sloppy PC. That's not an insult, the vast majority of people do.

I don't really think it justifies piracy, but there are those who have been burned by nonrefundable games often enough to use piracy as a trial. At lease console players can be assured the game will play.

People like Jerykk are going to download this game on a torrent either way anyway. The people who believe in "try before you buy" do that for every game, demo or no. Jerykk will tell you some grand pro-consumer story about how demos are not truly indicative of the whole game and might not adequately showcase all the flaws and so on.

People who pirate games because they are ignorant of the ramifications and selfish, who never pay for anything, are not going to be persuaded to change their ways by a demo of anything.

So no, I don't really get your point. If a lack of demo harms any group it is the people who refuse to have anything to do with downloading games they haven't bought, and those people will not turn to piracy, soo... no harm no foul, really. It's still stupid not to release a demo, but only because demos increase sales for good games. I bet EA thinks most PC gamers have a console as well and can play the demo there though.